Saturday 26 September 2015

Why was MacGyver's first name kept a mystery?

The name 'Stacey' was never formally adopted within the show as canon: instead, they went for him just being called 'Mac'. The intention, in the first season, was for the character to have a somewhat mysterious background, with hints of history rather than specifics. This approach was dropped by the end of the first season, partly because it wasn't very successful, partly because it didn't catch the interest of the audience.



Instead, the character was given an increasing amount of backstory (not always consistent). By the fifth season, the absence of a first name had almost become a running joke; a near-reveal (done partly as an audience tease) established that MacGyver disliked his first name, never used it, did not allow its use and would not answer to it.



The full reveal was finally done in the final season, and a big production (a two-part episode with fantasy sequences) was made of it. Other than that episode, the only time the name was ever mentioned was in the series finale: it was revealed that MacGyver's son had been given the name 'Angus' as a middle name, and that he didn't like the name either.

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